A variety of markets exist to supply items to customers or other recipients. For example, the World Wide Web (the “Web”) has increasingly become a medium that is used to search for, shop for and order items (such as products, services and/or information) that are for purchase, rent, lease, license, trade, evaluation, sampling, subscription to, etc. In many circumstances, a user can visit the Web site of a Web merchant (or a “Web store”) or otherwise interact with an online retailer or electronic marketplace that provides one or more items, such as to view information about the items, give an instruction to place an order for one or more items, and provide information needed to complete the purchase (e.g., payment and shipping information). After receiving an order for one or more items, a Web merchant then fulfills the order by providing the ordered items to the indicated recipient. Some product items may be available to be delivered electronically to a recipient (e.g., music downloaded over the Internet), while other product items (e.g., paperback books) may instead be delivered through physical distribution channels (e.g., shipment via a governmental postal service or private common carrier). Similarly, some service items may be provided electronically (e.g., providing email service), while others may be provided physically (e.g., performing cleaning services at the purchaser's house). The order fulfillment process typically used by Web merchants for product items that are to be physically provided shares similarities with other item ordering services that ship ordered items (e.g., catalog-based shopping, such as from mail-order companies), such as to deliver ordered items from one or more physical distribution or fulfillment centers operated by or on behalf of the Web merchant.
While many consumers desire new items, there is also substantial demand for used items. However, it is often difficult for a merchant or other supplier of used items to obtain a sufficient supply of used items. For example, a merchant or other supplier may face difficulties in identifying owners of used items who may be willing to sell or otherwise provide the used items to the merchant, as well as various costs in negotiating with the owners to obtain the used items. Similarly, even if owners of used items are interested in selling or otherwise providing their used items to others, various difficulties inhibit many such owners from actually making their used items available, such as due to difficulties in identifying interested buyers, negotiating with such buyers, arranging for transport of the items to the buyers, etc.
Thus, it would be beneficial to provide improved techniques for facilitating the supply of used items from owners of the items to used item providers or other potential recipients of the used items.